Elva Starbrow
by AewnethTatharsul
Summary: The girl cursed and dragon-marked is no longer a child. 20 years after Inheritance, Elva embarks on a journey to discover her true parentage. She uncovers a deadly secret in the lost city of El-Harim that will change her life forever- and the fate of Alagaesia.
1. Author's Note and Description

So, this story is about Elva. I won't explain her story in the books here because if you read them you know. This story takes place 20 years after Inheritance. She is searching for her parents' true identity, which she still has not discovered. It has been assumed that they were simply anonymous members of the Varden, but what really happened? Elva is determined to find out- she is no longer a child. In years she is barely 21, but in wisdom she is much older. And she suspects the magic of Eragon's curse may be even more than they assumed...

I do not own anything belonging to Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. This is fanfiction.


	2. Chapter 1: A Burning in her Heart

Elva had just woken from another nightmare, a memory...

She was in another place, another time. Far away from the Citadel of Ilirea. She was camping in the misty ruins of a distant region. A lost region. Nothing dwelt there but sorrow and fading memories, little more than shadows in the dark. This was the region of El-Harím, and it was deadly to all who gazed into its depths.

A hand in the gloom, a whisper in the wind. A mirror long broken that called Elva's heart. She walked trance-like through the city's accursed paths until she came to a cathedral, a tall gothic building that seemed to throb with a kind of energy... A very old kind of energy. The mist around it was thicker, denser. Elva believed you could hide an army of at least five thousand armed and mounted men in the Mists of the Lost City of El-Harím.

Inside the cathedral was a single mirror. It was as tall as the ceiling and had many sides, but it was fragmented badly. Little of it remained together. The floor was covered with shards of glass like sand. Then a type of singing... Music that was always playing... or was it? The shards were gathering... Coming together at the ruined mirror... Flying up... Back. Back into their original place. A scene glowed before Elva's eyes. If it was scrying, it was unlike any she had seen before... She saw...

The one thing that right now she wished the most.

The Mirror showed home, the citadel at Ilirea. The great halls draped with rich red curtains. And Nasuada Drötting, the High Queen of the Human Realm of Alagaësia. The woman strong and confident that had lead the war against the King of Terror (As Elva thought of him), Galbatorix. There had been no one Elva had feared more. Had. She was now facing a power much more great and terrible, a power more ancient...

Filled with longing for her home, a place beyond fear, she took a halting step towards the Mirror... And another... One more, she was almost there- Elva stepped into the mirror. She was once again swept away...

Back home. Relief so strong was filling her that she was swept away in a sea of emotion. She walked trance-like through the scarlet-curtained walls, humming an unfamiliar tune. Her eyes moved without her bidding to the throne room, where the Queen sat on a throne decorated with gold with young Welryn her son and Faulvor her daughter. Nasuada smiled at Elva, saying, "So you have returned!"-but Elva was not attentive to her words She had no control over her arm as she drew the hunting dagger Eragon had given her so long ago from under the pocket of her embroidered coat. Markings were visible on the surface, that she recognized somehow as the script of the Ancient Language. However, unlike the whispered words of magic sometimes heard in the Citadel, these runes had an aura of malice and deep hate. Her knife had never before been inscribed with markings of any kind- she had not any name for the blade. Elva saw her hand hold the dagger, in a position poised and perfectly balanced, prepared to throw.

With a pounding shock in her head and a burning sensation in her heart, Elva suddenly woke. She had experienced that haunting dream before, but only when camped near El-Harim, and it had become extremely less frequent the more distance she put between her and the Mists. On top of that, the dream had never been as vivid, and Nasuada's young children had not been present.

Elva sighed. The initial panic of her waking subsided, but still she felt heat in her chest, a burning in her heart.

She packed up and continued her foot journey back to Ilirea, with lingering fear of what she would discover.


End file.
